The new kafka.t3.small broker type for Amazon MSK is ideal for customers getting started with Apache Kafka or Amazon MSK, looking to test Apache Kafka applications in a development environment, or have low throughput production workloads. All Amazon MSK features apply to clusters with kafka.t3.small brokers including two and three availability zone deployments, encryption in transit and at rest, and each cluster is paired with a highly available, fully managed Apache ZooKeeper cluster at no additional cost.

The kafka.t3.small is an Amazon EC2 T3 instance in standard mode which provides a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst above the CPU baseline until the accrued CPU credits are exhausted. Visit the Amazon EC2 T3 webpage from more information on t3.small instances and how CPU credits work in standard mode.

Amazon MSK is a fully managed service for Apache Kafka that makes it easy for you to build and run applications that use Apache Kafka as a data store. Amazon MSK is 100% compatible with Apache Kafka, which enables you to quickly migrate your existing Apache Kafka workloads to Amazon MSK with confidence or build new ones from scratch. With Amazon MSK, you spend more time innovating on applications and less time managing clusters. To learn how to get started, see the Amazon MSK Developer Guide.